Wuv Pomes

Some friends of mine who are getting married asked me to write a poem for their wedding. As anathematic as said task is to me, I have agreed to do it. Rather than trying to do this entirely on my own, I am planning on doing an erasure or mash-up of "famous" love poems in order to construct something new. This makes sense to me in the context of the marriage-ritual, insofar as it is a facet of "tradition" that people tend to re-interpret, so likewise a re-interpretation of already extant celebrations of same seems in order. Not being an authority on love poems, myself (I know a few but...), I bequeath you, dear reader, to tell me what poems of this genre that you like and make my job that much easier. (You don't necessarily have to *like* said poem, either, especially since I am going to chop it up and reassemble it with a bunch of others. Think of me as the Buffalo Bill of love poems...)

I have a poem up as part of Elaine Equi's "Holiday Project" at Jacket Magazine here. The Holiday Project is a project curated by Elaine in which poets write "Greeting Card" poems for particular holidays, either real or invented. Mine is an occasional poem celebrating the Bride of Frankenstein's birthday (This makes reference to Shelley's actual novel in which the monster says he wants Frankenstein to make him a counterpart and he will go to South America, never to be seen again. The poem assumes that this actually happens. It doesn't actually have that much to do with the film Bride of Frankenstein.)

The unstoppable Geof Huth offers a very generous review of Poem Stripped of Artifice here. Its nice to have so many people respond positively to this project, since it is in so many ways atypical of my usual work. But is experimentation not, after all, as much about challenging ourselves as it is challenging the subjectively perceived status quo of the medium? Not that anyone has taken issue with it as a departure from my usual mode, said departure is probably most apparent to myself only.

ANCESTOR STORY

Flaxen the moribund
                 shoals,
into the devil-mouthed cave,
                 the water retreats--

                 Even steven:

For this
     I crush an egg in my hand,
                 an embryo oozes
     out the fist
                 like paint.

Albumen pile--this is the sister
                 of the sun.

My place on the map,
     here, yet unsure 
     how I arrived.  Have you seen
my ancestors?
                 Tell them
             to stay in France.
     The graffiti supercedes
             the blushing trees.

Why come here?
              for a dollar.
     Shall the withered tube
              pass a golden

egg?  Those people went down
     under the stones like dirt,

into the churning bay, the slag

      the sinking days-- the curve

heaves, an angry sleeper.  I do not

      want
      this dream, yet 

I will have it.

UFO #2

Is a thought-tangle, an ethereal brain coral. Is the thoughts of a far-off mind, floating as they imagine this very scene. Barely there at all but can be spotted through a lens of splintered glass or a narwhal's cornea. At the moment when someone says to stop reckoning so hard, down to every detail--the stain on that wall, a half-eaten candy bar like a big dead bug--& think of something useful instead is the moment at which it vanishes from the scene, never to be seen again.

UFO #1
After Italo Calvino

Is like an upended pinwheel or a metal lotus blossom. The delicate, pliant material from which it is made can be seen to bow in the force of a strong wind or undulating as it travels along at high velocity. How such a substance can withstand the pressure of deep space is unknown. Additionally, it seems to act as a kind of reverse mood-ring—its color appearing to the viewer according to his or her own mental condition at the time of viewing. It will assume the same color as its background to all but the most peaceful and contented observers. This is how it has remained amongst us undetected for many hundreds of years. Of its crew, there is no information save that they must be extremely small or light in order to occupy a vehicle composed of such flimsy material. There appear to be no openings of any sort on the body of the craft, leading one to speculate that it is perhaps unmanned or that its occupants do not occupy sidereal space in such a way that we are accustomed to.

POEM FOR JACK KIRBY

I try to help a man who’s stuck in the door
of the train, to force open the door of the train
to let him in & I ask for Jack Kirby
to give me the strength to force open the doors,
but no luck so I cryout “Heyheyhey
let the guy in,” Jack Kirby says let the guy in.
Give a guy a break, it’s Friday and the sun is out,
justlet the guy onto the train.

& the old men wait patiently on the right side
of the right side of the escalator & Jack Kirby
holds them up, Jack Kirby is the metal
in their canes & gets them to the platform
& onto the trains. Jack Kirby says get up
& give them your seat because someday you,
too, will be old, & someday also gone.
You won’t need your seat then.

When I close my eyes & listen carefully, for
the sound of the breath of the others in the wide
world, the sound of the goo of their hearts
throbbing together, all living, all pilgrims in
flesh & can hear only the honking of the cars,
the screaming of the neighbors, Jack Kirby
says, it’s OK, it’s OK, it is so quiet where
you’ll be going soon enough let the young shriek
all night & into the day.

I say, “Jack Kirby, I think I am losing my mind,”
& Jack Kirby says, no, you are just listening
to the cosmic music, in a far off place a being
is listening too, to your human cry, your human
misery & begins his long trip across the ocean
of stars to save you, you! Just when you think it’s too
late, here he comes in a flash of lighting &
dots, black ink. That’s how it all comes together.
But be patient, he has a lot of work to do.

When Iron Man thrusts his shining hand at
Darth Vader’s head in the subway station, it is Jack
Kirby who’s inside both of them. The one
he invented & the one he all but did. The sequels
sucked, George, because you pissed off the ghost
of Jack Kirby. Jack Kirby is coming to give us
all one on the jaw, that’s what we get, for
talking such trash, for doing the things we do.

In Columbus Square in the evening, he knows
this place well, the ghost of Jack Kirby whispers
to the blinded horses by the park, when they are
resting & when they work—he says yes my friends
we will work & never get ahead, we will work until
we die & some will remember us & some
won’t. We are all ghosts in Columbus Square,
the yuppies, the kids, the horses & you & me.

I try to write a poem for Jack Kirby & it isn’t
very good but Jack Kirby says don’t worry
about it, it just needs a little drama, some action
& shiny metal, shimmering cosmic rays, just write
WOW! WOW! Just like that across the page—
WOW! Now that’s a poem, WHAM! You’re a
decent guy, your poem will work out OK in the end.

Jack Kirby says keep working hard, Jack Kirby
says one half of an “A” and one half of a “B” make
a pretty damn good spaceship when cut out of
a magazine. Have a cigar, take a walk, give a quarter
to a bum—you can’t take it with you, I don’t need
to tell you that. I don’t need to tell you someday
will come the man on silver skis to bring you
home, to a place where the crystal buildings are
shining & the young people, we are all young people,
listen to the weird sounds of the weird instruments
& watch the huge ships crawl across the sky & you’ll
see. you’ll see it's just like Jack Kirby said it would be.

Disheveled black
dog chews
on a large
man's sneaker
in the
fenced-in
yard the
large man
who sold
paper flowers
has disappeared
from.

I am like one of those octogenarians who runs marathons. But here I am chugging along in my fuschia tracksuit.

FOURTH WORLD
-for Jack Kirby

Silence closed upon what had happened—

It stems from the waves of the mind

& everything moves—& makes a kind of beautiful noise—

Emotional turmoil breaks the dikes of the mind—& releases the flood in which we must fish—

A fear generator disguised as a great billboard

Each of us hears the music in the way that pleases him most

I feel like I’ve swallowed a thousand hot needles

Who but myself is justified in burning down this library?

But I am the revelation! The tiger-force at the core of all things

The architects of the atomic blow-up work feverishly in the evil factory

He is an ever-present fear that sweeps through the universe on swift, silent skis

I breathe! I move! I feel

The fools in that image little realize that we are distorting their cries into laughter

Suddenly the outer offices echo to the sounds of an eagerly awaited arrival

You lie, bodiless dog

Why, the very opposite of living

Slow down or be tranquilized

I regret the intrusion upon your many activities in this place

These are tanks of chemical defoliant packaged in the form of a dog

It’s a joy to be free of the grey & smelly air of a world filled with destructive machines

The guns make no sound

Right now I’m interested in your shiny orbital city

& fate proves to be an ugly, misshapen craft made of aged wood—

Yes, it’s a mysterious pigeon that waits for the vulture’s swoop

Perhaps we can lose ourselves in hamlets, cities—continents—

What kind of world is it—that spawns gods of evil & lesser beings with horribly hostile hang-ups?

Jumping jars of jellied jaguars

Where were you at the dawn of time?

You may get the chance to find out

Poem Stripped of Artifice

If anyone wants one of these, email me a snailmail address and I will send you one. I have about 20 to give away. Here's what Deborah Landau said about it, if you are interested:

"Poem Stripped of Artifice is a captivating sequence of poems that strikes an admirable--and difficult to achieve--balance between thinking and feeling. Stripped of pretense or posturing, these death-haunted poems ask big epistemological questions, weigh faith and doubt, and are permeated throughout by genuine emotion. Holding the sequence together is Mark Lamoureux’s intelligent and appealing voice, understated music, and large-hearted, distinctive sensibility. The poems are ambitious and risk-taking and possess a refreshing directness about death and god and love and depression and sex. Despite these ambitious themes, the poems aren’t ponderous, thanks to Lamoureux’s self-deprecating humor and light touch (“In the voudoun/ faith, a person puts his or her soul in/ a jar. Perhaps then, a soul can/ occupy an inorganic object like a jar/ or stuffed blackbird. If I put my/soul in a jar, I would probably lose it./ That’s how I am—absent minded”). Lamoureux’s capacious spirit animates the coffin-shaped poems, and each circumscribed box buzzes with vibrant interior life. “People often suggest/ that a poem must ‘do’ something to/ justify the time the reader spends/ reading it. If it doesn’t ‘do’/ anything, you are wasting your time,/ & the reader’s,” he writes. But the wide ranging mind-in-motion of these poems is compelling enough to reward multiple readings, so that when Lamoureux asks “How does it feel, my/ wasting your time like this?” the answer is, terrific."